The Substitute Math Teacher
by Anendda Rysden
Summary: Rafael Esquivel devoured textbooks like some people devoured lunch, with pop-quizzes and exams rounding things out for dessert. He'd never expected to find himself here, awake at three o'clock in the morning, cramming for Calculus exam he had no hope of passing. The creepy Decepticon breathing down his neck was not helping - not at first, anyway.


_The product of me venting my frustrations while studying for Algebra finals. Math is evil, folks. And anybody that tries to convince you otherwise is a Reptilian. Anyway, canonically I suppose this comes directly after the Season 1 finale. In my ramblings, I imagined a scenario in which Unicron wasn't wholly defeated and Optimus and Megatron were persuaded to stick it out with their mutual alliance - because all this fighting back-to-back nonsense accidently awakened the feels. And also because neither of their factions is powerful enough to defeat the Chaos Bringer alone. So, yeah. There's that._

* * *

Rafael Esquival was small and quiet, and generally overlooked by a lot of people. He was also extremely intelligent. With the ability to read binary code at age four and understand Algebra at age nine, textbooks were his element, digesting the words like some people would digest lunch. To the small and bespectacled twelve-year-old, robots from outer space – and the testimony of amazing places and the even more amazing technology they brought with them – was like a dream come true. He'd told his mother he'd joined a so-called Computer Club after school to explain the long hours he spent hanging around at their secret underground base, so it really wasn't a lie so much as a glazed version of the truth, even if Optimus Prime made an iPad look like a 1950s fax machine by comparison.

Usually, Raf relished the thought of doing homework, but tonight the prospect loomed on the horizon like a glum black cloud. Even knowing it was only prolonging his torture, Raf tried to delay as long as possible by working on things with Bumblebee, or discussing the intriguing science of ground bridges with Ratchet. The afternoon slipped past like sand through a sieve, until at last there was no more delaying, no more putting it off. After calling his mom to report that he'd be staying at a friend's house, Raf picked up his schoolbag and trudged into the corner with the air of a prisoner taking his last walk to the gallows.

Miko and Bulkhead usually could be found watching pro wrestling or monster truck derbies in the small human den, but tonight the place was empty. Raf plugged his laptop into an outlet and spread his notebooks out, setting himself up at the table. He had two boxes of apple juice and a candy bar put aside for emergency rations. He was going to need them. Raf sharpened his pencil, flipped to a clean sheet of paper in his notebook, and got to work. Having excelled in Algebra (even college-level stuff was hardly a challenge anymore, thank you very much) Raf had signed up for Advanced Calculus this semester, eager to broaden his knowledge so he could understand more of the technology that the Autobots used.

Mistakes had been made.

For the first time in his life, Raf had discovered something that he just couldn't quite grasp. The equations had seemed easy at first, but somewhere between the integers and negative numbers and linear functions he became hopelessly lost, not knowing where exactly he'd gone wrong in his math, let alone how he would begin to fix it. After an hour, his notebook was clogged with failed equations and dirty pink curls of eraser. After two hours, nothing much had changed; he'd only used up more pages. Raf plowed a hand through his hair, making it stick up in crazy angles.

He supposed he could have asked somebody for help, but his options weren't that great. Although they got good grades, neither Miko nor Jack had an aptitude for math. They would try to be as supportive as possible, but nothing would really get done towards finishing his exam on time. Raf knew that if he asked, Optimus would drop whatever he was doing to kindly and patiently guide him through the complex equations, but the Autobot leader was busy and Raf didn't want to bother him with something as trivial as homework.

That left Ratchet, and Raf wasn't about to ask _him_. Not that he didn't like the good doctor, but the memory of the last time Ratchet had "helped" with his homework was still rather fresh in his mind. He'd spend half the day trying to explain to his math teacher that the strange alien symbols on his paper were actually a language from outer space, and that the meaningless drivel wasn't drivel at all, but rather a new form of highly complex math.

Yeah. He wasn't going there.

Sighing heavily, Raf stuck the candy bar in his mouth. Another two hours flew by. After giving him all the encouragement they could (and a sympathetic baggie of Cheetos) his friends had gone home for the night. Shortly after that, Arcee and the good doctor had turned in as well, giving him a deeply sympathetic look before powering the lights down halfway so he wouldn't be sitting in the dark. Raf was left alone in the massive control room. By now, he'd managed to stumble his way to a meager four correct answers. Four out of twenty one. He was never, ever going to get this done before morning. Heck, he'd be lucky if he got anything done at all.

Bleary-eyed and frustrated, Raf opened his last box of apple juice since the candy bar had made his mouth dry. Gazing between the glowing computer screen and his heavily smudged equations, Raf let out a long, aggravated sigh. It was to the point where nothing made sense anymore. He was getting tired, making stupid mistakes. Raf struggled with the next equations for ten minutes, trying to find out why the numbers weren't coming out right, only to realize that he'd actually marked down 3×3 = 6.

Groaning, Raf suddenly realized the allure of beating one's head on the desk. Pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, he checked his ninja turtle wristwatch. Right now, Donatello's arms were skewed at an impossible angle, indicating the late hour. Raf's shoulders slumped. Maybe it was time to just accept his fate. Four correct answers would earn him a nice red F. He'd never gotten an F. He'd never even gotten a B! Raf looked forlornly down at his notes. Perhaps this kind of really complex mathematics was just too much for him. Maybe he'd finally found something that he couldn't do.

Raf was surprised at how much the thought stung.

Sighing, he rubbed his eyes and picked up his pencil, determined to keep going. A few more problems would certainly go a long way towards proving that he'd really tried to do his best. As Raf hunched over his notebooks, scribbling furiously and whispering to himself, a shadow fell across the table. Raf's head snapped up. Only one of the Bots could make that big of a shadow, and only one of them walked with this kind of eerie stealth. Swallowing, Raf spun his chair around. It took him a full five seconds for his gaze to travel up the slender grey chassis to the Decepticon's face nearly a full twenty-five feet in the air.

"Hello, sparkling," Starscream purred, his lips parting in a creepy sort of smirk. His deep, sibilant voice made Raf break out in goosebumps. "You'll forgive me for not being an expert on the recharge cycles of you Earth vermin, but aren't you up a little late? What are doing out here all alone?"

Raf didn't like the disturbing lilt Starscream put on the "all alone" part. As if for the first time, he realized that he was indeed alone in a dimly lit room that was easily the size of a football field. The space suddenly seemed very cavernous and unwelcoming. Shadows lurked everywhere, on the ceiling, in the corners, under the tables. The wide-open space made it impossible to elude the Decepticon by running and Raf was suddenly aware that if he screamed for any reason, nobody was going to hear him. Gulping a hard lump in his throat, Raf forced himself to answer Starscream. He'd already decided that his best chance of escaping this encounter alive was by showing the utmost respect.

"I was doing school, Mr. Starscream. Sir," said Raf, his voice small.

"Oh, really?" The Decepticon surveyed him with hooded optics. Raf felt like a butterfly about to be pinned to a collection card. There was something about Starscream's sinister smile that made him think the Decepticon was imagining all the terrible things he planned to do with him. Both Optimus and Megatron had made it clear that the exceedingly fragile alliance between the Autobots and Decepticons was not to be jeopardized in any way – at least until the agreement stopped being mutual beneficial – so Raf was pretty sure Starscream wouldn't try anything nasty with that kind of combined threat hanging over his head, but you never knew. In an underground base that was built to accommodate three-story robots, it would be easy to hide the body of one small boy. Raf gulped.

"You look tired. Having troubles?" Starscream drawled.

"Uh…" Raf wanted to say that he was most definitely _not_ having problems. In fact, everything was smooth sailing. No need to give the creepy Decepticon any more reasons to look down on him. However, he was pretty sure Starscream would see through that in a heartbeat and he didn't want the giant mech to squash him for being an insolent liar, either. Decisions, decisions. "A little bit. I- I mean, yes, sir," Raf fumbled, choosing the answer that seemed less likely to get him killed.

Starscream snorted. "What a surprise," he said. "I've seen the technology on this retarded mudball, and I'd say that's a pretty good measure of your sum intelligence." The Decepticon cast a disparaging glance at his notebooks.

"I'm not retarded!" Raf shot back, balling his fists. Oops.

"Is that so?" Starscream's brows slanted inwards, narrowing his optic slits, his teeth gleaming between his slightly parted, smirking lips. Raf's arms broke out in goosebumps. His heavy red glasses were slipping down his nose again, but he didn't dare take his eyes off the Decepticon long enough to push them back up. Between Megatron and Starscream, Raf liked Megatron much better. The colossal Decepticon was a creep, but at least he was honest about it. If Megatron wanted you dead, you knew about it – right before he reduced you to smithereens with his fusion cannon. With Starscream on the other hand, death would most likely involve being taken apart piece by piece, with the Seeker keeping track of how long you could live without your arms.

Raf would rather get blown to smithereens any day. He forced down a shiver, praying that Ratchet would get a case of the midnight munchies and come by looking for a quart of oil. However, the room stayed empty. "I… yes, sir, Mr. Starscream," said Raf, trying to wipe his sweaty palms on his jeans. "But I've never had this much trouble with math before!" he added, still feeling brave enough to defend himself.

"I see," the Decepticon mocked, his gaze refocusing on Raf's laptop. Only a few seconds passed, but to Raf it felt like an eternity. With a quiet whirring of servos, Starscream made a gesture towards the large computers at the end of the room. "Put in on screen," he commanded.

Raf's jaw unhinged. "Excuse me?"

Starscream leveled a frightening glare at him. "I said put it on the monitors, or are your audio circuits malfunctioning as well?" he hissed. "I'm not going to squint at your puny little terminal."

Raf wondered if the Decepticons were messing with some kind of magnetic flux generator, because surely the Earth had just done an 180-degree wobble on its axis. Hastily spinning around, he ducked under the table to find the wire he sometimes used to hook his computer up to Ratchet's console. He really didn't want to expose his back to Starscream, but it was a better idea than sitting there gaping. Fumbling a little, Raf inserted the cord into his computer's USB drive and waited. A minute later, the large computers blinked to life, moving painfully slow since Steve Jobs had never thought to make his processors fast enough to mesh with Cybertronian technology.

Squinting against the invasive glare, Raf resized a couple of windows until his current homework filled the screen. The equation looked deceptively simple – a simple matter of isolating X and plugging it back into the problem – but Raf knew it wasn't. He'd tried for forty-five minutes to get this particular one right, with no success. He nervously gripped his pencil, wondering what was going to happen now. He'd been tired five minutes ago, but all thoughts of sleep had flown from his mind. Right now it felt like a gigawatt of electricity was pulsing through his veins.

A quick glance at Starscream revealed that the Decepticon's optics were skimming over the equation, little twitches running through the fingers of one hand as though the mech were silently counting. Raf, who needed a whole page of writing down formulas to work out the equation, was shocked to realize that Starscream was doing it all in his head.

"Well, it's _obvious_ where you went wrong." Starscream sneered, looking back at him. "I can't believe you're having trouble with such a ridiculously simple equation!"

Shocked by how fast Starscream had worked out the answer – no more than thirty seconds, tops – Raf bit his tongue, swallowing the rude comment he'd been about to make. Starscream was familiar with calculations light-years beyond anything Earth had today, formulas that made it possible to build warp drives and ground bridges and warships larger than the state of Connecticut. That, and the Decepticon was more than several millennia old. Acting superior and _being_ superior were two entirely different balls of wax. Raf suddenly felt very small and insignificant.

"Could- could you show me how you did it?" Raf blurted nervously, unable to deny the curious hunger forming inside him. He knew the Decepticon wasn't going to show him, but he didn't loose anything by asking, except maybe his pride, and truth be told there wasn't too much of that left.

Starscream chuckled softly. If Raf had thought his voice was sinister, it was nothing compared to his laughter. It was nasty and surprisingly high-pitched, but with a much deeper undercurrent, like electricity from a downed wire. Raf forced himself to stay in his chair and not run screaming in the opposite direction.

"Why should I?" Starscream whispered, taunting him.

"Because…" Raf paused, thinking about it. He wasn't wise like Optimus, or cunning like Megatron, but he had a pretty good idea what the correct response should be in this situation. "Because I want to know and there's nobody else smart enough to teach me."

Starscream's laughter reached a disturbing pitch, but Raf's careful answer seemed to have been the right one. "Very well, sparkling," said Starscream, smirking in a very self-satisfied way.

Raf jumped as Starscream leaned over him and casually overturned the pencil cup sitting at the edge of the table. Miko's brightly colored markers went sluicing onto the floor, the noise seeming horribly loud in the stillness. Starscream picked one up between two fingers and pinched the cap off, letting the crumpled plastic fall to the floor. Holding the marker like one would hold a tiny pin, Starscream began to write formulas directly on the screen. Raf felt a thrill of horror. He prayed that the marker was labeled _Crayola_ and not _Sharpie_.

"The volume of the frustum equals x1 + x2 p[f(x)] times the power of 2, multiplied by the coefficient of dx," Starscream explained, writing the formula with blurring speed. "First we substitute x1 for a and x2 for b, revolving around the concept of y=x, x=a, and x=b around the axis."

Starscream continued like this for about a minute, until the glowing screen was covering in opaque red lines and symbols, which was when he circled the answer and turned back to look at Raf, favoring him with a superior smirk. Raf had tried to take notes at first, but somewhere in the middle he'd taken to just sitting with his mouth agape, desperately struggling to keep up.

Starscream's optics narrowed. "You didn't understand a word I just said, did you?"

Raf gulped. "Not… not everything, sir," he managed, his palms sweating again.

He heard Starscream rapidly force air out through his ventilation intakes in the Cybertronian equivalent of a sigh. "Well, allow me to dumb it down so your pathetic mind can comprehend it," the Decepticon sneered, pointing to his first set of equations. "What is the first thing you should do?"

Realizing he was being asked a direct question, Raf almost froze up. Something told him that getting the wrong answer wasn't going to cut it. Heart pounding, he studied Starscream's angular writing with every fiber of his being. "You replace x1 with _a_ and x2 with _b_?" he asked hopefully.

"Very good." Starscream's disdain for him was like acid. "And then?"

Hastily copying each step of the equation inside his notebook, Raf did his best to follow along with Starscream. He could have done without the condescending attitude, but the Decepticon did do things much slower this time, allowing him to work out each step of problem before moving on to the next one. Raf had watched a lot of teachers use the blackboard in school, but the Decepticon's hand gestures burned into his mind like Polaroid snapshots. Starscream's long, spidery hands gave him the willies, mostly because he could easily picture them pulling the wings off butterflies. He shook the frightening analogy away and concentrated.

"So the answer is…?" Starscream inquired, covering that part of the problem with his hand.

Raf chewed his bottom lip. "Um… the volume equals p/3 [h(R2 + rR + r2]?" he asked, wondering if it was time to cringe.

The Decepticon smirked. "Correct," he said, letting his hand fall. Raf typed the formula into his computer and was rewarded with a bright, happy chime that let him know he'd gotten the right answer. Raf's face split into a grin.

"Display the next one, if you would," drawled Starscream.

His victory short-lived, Raf brought up the next equation. At the end of another long string of formulas, he got the right answer to this one as well, and the next, and the next. Raf was downright shocked that Starscream was actually doing this. He was snarky and impatient, always giving Raf the nerve-racking feeling of working on an invisible timer, but the Decepticon was a very meticulous teacher. Raf's head was growing sore with the figures, and Starscream's grating voice was nowhere near pleasant, but he surprised himself with how much he was actually soaking up. At problem sixteen, Starscream turned away from the screen.

"Now," he said, his optics brightening with a sudden, treacherous glint. "You do this one on your own."

Raf gulped. If he got it wrong, Starscream would fricassee him for sure. Hunching over his notebook, he sketched the formula at the top and started the equation. They were getting into Unit Circles now, a simple, but deviously clever pie-wheel of numbers and angles. He got halfway into the equation, remembering that what was done to one side of the equation must then be done to the other, but then his mind drew a sudden blank. His pencil froze, hovering above the paper. _Scrap. Now what? What comes next?_

Raf heard a soft whir of servos, but with his gaze firmly fixed on the paper, he didn't realize that Starscream had gotten behind him until the Decepticon's shadow engulfed him. Gasping, Raf's head shot up just in time to see Starscream bend one knee, kneeling gracefully on the floor. The Decepticon was so close, Raf could feel the warm air escaping his vents and smell the liquid tang of Energon. He wasn't nearly as big or bulky as some of the Bots, but he could still crush his head like a grape.

"What's wrong?" Starscream purred, his voice a nasty mockery of concern. "Not having trouble again, are we?"

"No," Raf choked, hastily returning his gaze to his notebook. He covered the stupid 3×3 = 6 with his hand so Starscream wouldn't see. He tried not to glance at the Decepticon out of the corner of his eye and went back to scratching out his problem, redoing his math, searching for where he'd messed up.

Starscream irritably rapped his finger on Raf's notebook hard enough to judder the table. Raf had the good sense to cringe, hating the Decepticon's close proximity. "Multiply to the power of four," Starscream hissed, as if it were obvious. "Then insert the value of y into the equation, times the sine of the thirty-degree angle."

"Oh." Raf felt a mingled rush of horror and relief. His mouth was dry, but there was no way he was taking a drink of juice with Starscream breathing down his neck. "It's just so hard to remember," he gasped defensively, scribbling quickly. Where Starscream had tapped his finger, his notebook now sported a neat, round hole the size of a dime. "There's so many rules!"

"That's mathematics, sparkling – the one law in the universe that can't be broken," said Starscream, shifting his hand to Raf's shoulder. The small boy went as stiff as a board, his heart thudding. Each of Starscream's fingers was as thick as Raf's arm, but they tapered to scary, needle-like points strong enough to rend steel. The weight of those digits made it feel like a dog was sitting on his shoulder, pressing him into the chair. Raf tried his best not to move. Why, oh, why had he ever asked the creepy mech for his help?

"However, rules can be memorized," said Starscream, obviously enjoying the discomfort he was causing. "And some are easier taught than others. For example… are you listening to me, vermin?"

Raf tried to nod, he really did, but his gaze was focused on those terrible fingers, filled with horrified imaginings of what they could do his soft human body. So when Starscream's hand moved, Raf immediately assumed the worst. He let out a small cry as the Decepticon's index finger slipped up the side of his face and forced his head around hard enough to make the vertebrae in his neck crackle. Wide-eyed and frightened, Raf forced himself to meet Starscream's gaze.

"While I enjoy the kowtowing, you _will_ look me in the eye when I am speaking to you, is that clear?" Starscream hissed.

Raf nodded quickly, feeling the Decepticon's pointed finger dig into his cheek and knowing Starscream could break his neck with just a few more pounds of pressure. Raf made a point of keeping perfectly still, focusing on Starscream's burning red optics until his eyes watered.

"Now hold out your hand," said Starscream.

Raf didn't move. Was Starscream going to snip off one his fingers or something?

Starscream narrowed his optics and the pressure on Raf's neck became increasingly unpleasant. Not painful, not yet, but the threat of it was there. "Hold out your hand, sparkling. I won't damage you, I promise," he said, but the so-called kindness in his voice was only a thin, sinister facade.

Moving slowly, as if he'd developed a case of rust, Raf nervously extended one hand before the giant mech. As of now, he didn't have much of a choice anyway. Satisfied, Starscream lifted his own hand in a mirroring image, palm facing towards him, long fingers splayed.

"On Cybertron, we call your Unit Circle the Numeral Ring, but the principle is the same. Picture your fingers as the values of the first quadrant," said Starscream. "Your smallest digit is designated as number 0. The one next to it is number 30. Middle, 45. Index, 60. And thumb, 90. The center of your palm is number 2, also known as the base. Can you comprehend that, vermin?"

"Yes, sir," Raf whispered, burning with curiosity.

"Now say you want to find the sine of 30 degrees, like your equation. Bend down the third finger, the one designated…?"

"Number 30," answered Raf. He crooked his ring finger down to the center of his palm.

"Good. Now count the number of fingers below the folded one," Starscream gave Raf's pinky a painful flick with his free hand," and find their square root. In this case, it is 1. Place it over the number of the base and you have 1 over 2, or ½. That is sine of the thirty-degree angle."

Just like that, the proverbial lightbulb went off in Raf's head. It was so simple, so utterly, ridiculously simple. "Can you use it to find other things? Like the cosine or the tangent, or another sine?" he babbled excitedly, filled with awe. Starscream chuckled, his vents chuffing softly in the silence.

"Of course," he purred. "Why would I waste my time showing you something that's only good for one equation, and a deplorably easy one at that? Here, I will show you how to find the cosine of thirty-degrees. Like before, you fold down your third finger, but this time you count the fingers _above_ it, not below, and find the square root."

"Then you place it over the base, the number 2, and you get 3 over 2!" Raf could already see the dozens of places he could use a trick like this, how to modify it to find other angles, and picture how much simpler doing these kinds of equations would be. He quickly typed the answer into the computer, got it right, and moved on to the next problem. Holding his hand out like a wondrous new tool of science, Raf tried applying the trick to this equation as well, and you know what? It worked. It actually worked.

Shocked and giddy with excitement, Raf craned his neck to stare at Starscream. "You're amazing!" he stated in delight, the words out of his mouth before he could stop them.

Starscream drew himself up and began to preen, flicking imaginary dust off his wings. They were raised in what was obvious a very dignified position, forming a sharp V on his back. "Of course I am," Starscream acknowledged smugly. "I could solve your miserable equations in my recharge cycle!"

Raf had no doubt of that, so he decided to let Starscream bask. He tried another equation and got it right, and another one after that. Raf couldn't believe it. His homework was almost done, it was 3 o'clock in the morning, and here he was being tutored by none other than Commander Starscream. If Optimus saw him now, he would probably blow a gasket. Literally.

Raf looked up at Starscream, offering the Decepticon a nervous, but wholeheartedly genuine smile. "Thank you, Mr. Starscream. I… I really, really appreciate it," he said.

Starscream snorted. "Well, at least somebody does," he hissed. The giant mech stood up with a whir of servos, peering down at Raf from the shadows that hugged close to the ceiling. Needless to say, Raf didn't care much for those glowing red eyes, but he told himself not to shift his gaze even an inch.

"Well, now that you've wasted several orns of my life that I'll never get back, I'll leave you to your schooling," said Starscream. He paused and seemed to consider something. "Perhaps you're not as dense as I first thought," he added, with all the air of a gracious overlord. "Your puny equations are nothing compared to the great mathematics of Cybertron, but I suppose even parasites must start somewhere."

 _Gee, thanks,_ thought Raf dryly. Out loud, however, he just thanked Starscream again. Casting him one final – and rather derisive – glance, the Deception turned and walked away into the shadows, heading back the way he'd came. Despite his size, Starscream barely made any noise at all, only a muted clacking noise as his heels struck the concrete, and Raf knew he would have missed it entirely had he not been listening. Due to her slight frame, Arcee walked very similar to Starscream, the difference being that the Decepticon took it one step further, becoming stealthy and devious, a backbiter in every nuance of the word.

Still, Raf really didn't care a whole lot. Dealing with Starscream was Megatron's job, not his. His job was to finish his homework and get some sleep. Giving his hand a renewed glance of wonder, he finished off the last two problems and hit _Print_. When the machine had finished, Raf gathered the papers up, fastened them together with one of Miko's hot purple paperclips, and stowed everything in his backpack. Then he shut down his computer, flipped his notebooks into a messy pile, and went over to the couch to crash, thinking that maybe calculus wasn't so bad after all.

The next morning, Raf awoke to the sound of Ratchet's indignant yowling as he demanded to know which slag-eating, Pit-spawned, tailpipe licking Bot had scrawled all over his monitors, quote-unquote. Nobody saw Raf grinning stupidly into the couch, his cheek mashed up under one hand. _You wouldn't believe me even if I told you, Ratch._

* * *

 _Please ignore my nonsensical butchering of mathematical principles (I understood only half of what I was writing and the rest was just flailing in the dark!) and for the love of Primus, don't actually try to use them. I will not be held responsible for whatever exam you fail, LOL._


End file.
